Alternative Weapon Attributes

In a long RPG, weapons often simply increase with dmg and sometimes speed. Some weapons allow for various additional attribute damage, eg + 6 fire damage => some allow splash, life steal, criticals.

In a longer game, you can ration out how much you give of each, but perhaps there should be an alternate option.
People should be able to enchant items or obtian weapons/armors which do more.
For example, something simple, like a Undeath Bow for a Black Ranger. It auto casts Black Arrow Level 2 With each hit. I suppose similair to the dark orb, but suppose you expand this logic to other spells.
These items wouldn't be cheap, and I figure they'd be cast with every hit with about the same cooldown but it would allow the characters to A) save mana and B) allow them to continue without wasting casting time.
Passive spells dont apply, but say another example would be Blood Lust.
Attack spells would only attack the individual target they hit, (no splash spells)
There might only be a limited number of spells usable, since Stun is a pain in the ass, and players would be able to upgrade but it would be very difficult for them to get spells or abilities not in there class or outside there current abilities.

Curse
Black, Ice, Searing Arrows
Life/Mana Drain
Silence
Soul Blaze
etc . . .
I might have to even it out with cooldowns, but tell me what you think

Do it. I've planned on having my items as multi-functional one way or another. +Damage and simple orbs getting boring very quickly.

Uh. Not hard to do at all, so do it.

Are you guys sure? I've found a bunch of ways to give different effects to items. Using the common lifesteal, critical, bash, etc. DOES get boring. So, make up your own effects. Heck, I even use ones from different games.

For example(One that I made): Soul Stealer's Coat
Recover 5% health and mana for every enemy defeated.

Anyways, this is a very interesting concept of how to make unique items. I hope more people do this. :)

To be honest it's difficult for me to develop, especially during the summer, so I like to think about it innovatively, I'm designing a map on paper and I'd prefer to have a fairly flexible system as much as possible, which being as intuitive and balanced as possible.

I'm designing out a Level system which will allow people to choose between 4 initial classes, but the focus will be with various elemental choices.
Eg.
A Fire based Fighter would be one with a focus on perhaps additional damage/stats.
A Water based fighter would focus more on skills, such as dodge/crits, perhaps a secret hidden move, speed.
Ideally they'd even out.
Mentioned this somewhere else and I'm still fleshing out the details best I can on paper